Coca Cola: One Brand to Rule Them All

At a conference in Paris this week, Coca Cola’s CMO, Marcos de Quinto, explained why the company was changing its global strategy to market all its products under “One Brand” and how that will help Coca-Cola boost sales amid growing health concerns across the world about sweet drinks.

His rationale is that the previous sub-brand strategy, where for example Diet Coke was marketed to sophisticated female consumers, undermined the brand core proposition or the fundamental Coca-Cola brand promise: that it’s for everybody.

At the launch de Quinto said, “This is a more effective and efficient branding strategy. One brand idea and one brand identity. They [the brands] share common values, positivity, authenticity, inclusiveness, and also share the same brand iconography.”

“There is only one brand now and only one personality. We don’t have multiple personalities.”

What Goes Around, Comes Around
Now Coca Cola are not stupid – they have not rushed into this huge change in direction. The One Brand strategy has been trialled in the UK since March 2015 and Coca Cola claim it is a success. However, I would argue that the various Coca Cola sub-brands are not individually for everybody. The company has spent many years building the equity in the Diet and Zero sub-brands (less so with the green labelled Coca Cola Life) and it risks throwing these babies out of a bath of standard sugar filled Coke. My guess is that Coca Cola’s next CMO will oversee a U-turn, back to a sub-brand strategy where they announce with no hint of irony, that although all brands under the Coke umbrella share some very important core values, they are aimed at different markets. At the end of the day, you cannot have an article about Coca Cola without referencing that a 330ml can has the equivalent of 9 teaspoons of sugar (see what I did there) and in the short and long run the global health lobby has the standard red tin of Coke in its sights. The other products therefore need to be marketed in a way that reflects the sub-brands’ unique properties, the values of their specific target markets and the lack of sugar or caffeine which makes them less unhealthy. Time will tell.

Taste the Emotion
Where Marcos de Quinto does appear to have struck the right note is the shift to a far more emotional approach in the brand advertising. The new campaign “Taste the Feeling” harks back to the advertising glory days of Coca Cola before the rise of type 2 diabetes and childhood obesity. The 10 different adverts all have a powerful emotional pull and take the global branding strategy into a marketing communications programme with strong consumer appeal. However the lead advert for 2016 called Anthem while looking good does appear to have been poorly dubbed for the UK market. The break-up one takes the brand right into a couple’s relationship and is a real tear jerker while the brotherly love one is a heart warming family story. Coke even appear to have achieved an entirely coincidental Bowie reference with the use of “Under Pressure” in one advert.

These adverts all move Coca Cola’s advertising away from a more rational approach and back to a more emotional one, where historically they have been very strong. If anything can save the master brand from its seemingly inevitable demise it is reminding everyone that it’s a taste and a brand that they love.

Image credit: Coca Cola